FUNNYACCENT

The Crabeater

My father celebrated life as he celebrated food: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, chewy, crunchy, hot and spicy even though he had a hard life since he was a kid. He never knew his father, he met his mother after he married my mother, he got to know his siblings after he had his first child.

My father loved his life as much he loved food.  He never complained about his life nor did he complained the food served in front of him. No matter how bland and tasteless the food was, all he said, "Alhamdulillah...." and kept on eating.

One of his favorite dishes was crab curry with pineapple. He loved it so much he'd rather have them without rice. Th problem was my father was a hopeleless crabeater.

One thing I've discovered about eating crabs is nobody could eat crabs graciously. You have to use both hands. In my father's case, even if he had the third hand, it wouldn't had made any differnece.

My father would bit, pound and tore the  apart, when none of these worked, he chewed them and spat them out carefully in his palm and put them a little bowl. Of course all of his table manners took place when my mother wasn't around. As long as I remember, when we had crabs curry my mother sat patiently next to him, skinned and removed all the remained  shells at least two crabs and placed the meat in my father's plate.

During my third year in high school, I was home during the first semester break, my mother came home from the market with half of her rattan basket full of fresh crabs.

"Wait until Abah see the crabs, he would be in heaven," said my sister as she was cleaning the crabs at the kitchen sink. My father was away visiting his army buddy in the next town and he wasn't expected to be home until the next day. As usual if my father wasn't able to join the family's meal, my mother made sure to put away her fresh cooked dishes for my father's potion.

It was past 2 pm when my father arrived home. My mother and my sister were at the next door neighbor helping them out for the wedding preparation. I asked my father if he was hungry. He said he already had lunch at his buddy's house before he left his house.

"We had crab curry yesterday, and Mak saved some for you."

My father's eyes lit up like North Star when he heard crab curry.

"Well, I had lunch three hours ago. May be I would have some."

I knew it. My father could never resist crab curry. While he was in a shower, I heated up his portion my mother saved up for him.  When he came out of the bedroom, the food was laid out on the dining table and I went out to join my mother.

The sun was low in the sky when we got home. The afternoon heat was melted away by evening breeze. One side of the front door was opened.  The house was serenely quiet. My mother opened her bedroom door. She came out a few minutes later and signaled us to join her. There was my father lying on his back with pages of newspaper on his chest. His reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.

His mouth half opened and the newspapers on his chest rose and fell rhythmically.

I still didn't get it why my mother wanted to see my father sleeping. As my sister and I moved closer to the bed we noticed a small black dots moving down slowly from his left shoulder. On top of the black dot was a white piece. I lowered my gazed and fell on the second moving black dot on his left arm. When my sister noticed that I was ready to burst out laughing she and my mother pushed me out of the room.

My mother remained in the bedroom. I was sure she was trying to remove the ants and the pieces of crab shells without waking up my father. Then we heard a shriek. It was my father's voice then followed by my mother's bubbly laughter. We raced to their bedroom.

My father sat upright on the bed, his right hand brushing his ear up and down, his reading glasses sat crookedly on the tip his nose. The newspaper pages scattered on the bed and the floor. At the same time my mother  was on the bed next to my father trying to hold his right hand and calming down my father.

"Ants, ants, they get into my ear."

"Sit still, sit still, let me do it. You can't see them."

We looked at each other trying to hold off our laughter. Another tiny piece of crab shells must've had landed somewhere on my father.

It wasn't an everyday scene where you could watch your father fanning his ear from the ants getting into his ear and your mother tried to calm your father down.

"What happened Mak? Did the ants get into Dad's ear?" My mother nodded her head . My father's eyes were alarmingy wide as he . Horror was written all over his face.

My mother moved her forefinger from my father's ear. At the tip of her forefinger was crushed ants and tiny piece of crab shell. My mother told me to get an ointment from her dresser. My father sighed with relief.

That was my father. When ever he had crabs he would have a half battalion of ants transporting the tiny crab shells from him.

When my father died twelve years ago, my mother couldn't bring herself to eat crabs until I went home for a visit in year 2000 when she bought four kilos of fresh blue crabs.

As we sat around the dining table, my sister KN and I exchanged look. My mother's expression bore calm and joyous look like any mother's in the world when half of her children if it was not all were at her side.

"Your dad loved these fresh crabs. He could three or four in one sit." My mother tore the claw's shell and placed the meat in my plate.

"Mak, do you miss shelling off crab shells for Dad?" I was praying hard my question wouldn't upset my mother. I felt a gentle kick from my sister.

"Yes, I do, but I think it's about time I eat it again. I told your sister she could eat the crabs anytime she wants."

"I'd rather have them with you. Eating crab by yourself is no fun at all." said my sister.

"Remember that day when the ants almost got into your father's ear?" I sensed a little sadness in her voice, but at the same time I felt the joyous laced her question.

I put down the piece of crab meat on the plate and fanned my ear trying to imitate my father's reaction when he realized the ants were in his ear.

"Ants, ants, they get into my ear." My sister injected in.

My mother started to laugh and made a horror face my father had that day. Then her eyes glistened with tears, but we knew it wasn't a sad tears. That lovely afternoon, we laughed and cried around the dining table celebrating the favorite dish of the man we love.

What's Durian Got To Do With Love?

Dear Abah,

You should've seen me today right after I had a bowl of red glutinous rice porridge with durian. It was about 3:15 pm. "Wasn't it a little early for tea?" You'd probably wondered. You're right, it was early for tea, but you see I didn't have a proper breakfast this morning. While scrubbing the bathtub, the bulb in kitchen department in my head lighted up, and you know whenever that bulb lights up, I have to put on hold everything I do and follow where the light takes me.

And this morning the luminous spotlight fell on the frozen food aisle at Super88Market. I had a quick breakfast, Danon Strawberry yogurt and a second cup of coffee and took a fifteen minutes walk to the store. It was 30 degree outside, the sun shone, the dried leaves sat still on the frozen soil, so fifteen minutes walk did a wonderful job to my heart

Abah,

You must be wondering why did I prepare red glutinous rice porridge when the black glutinous rice that I was craving for? You see, the store only carried 5 pounds bag of all types of rice except for red glutinous rice they have it in 2 pounds bag. I bought red glutinous rice.

If it wasn't for the red glutinous rice I would've had my meal sooner. I didn't know red glutinous rice soaked up a lot more water than regular rice. For a half cup of red glutinous rice I cooked, it took five cups of water to turn the rice into porridge. I was furious at myself for bad timing. It was too late for lunch and too early for tea. What the heck. I scooped the porridge with durian into a bowl and put it away to cool it off.

I wiped the kitchen counter,  rinsed and put away the clean dishes. I'd probably set the Guinness World record under A Malay Woman Who Cleaned Her Kitchen In One Minute As She Was Waiting For Her Red Glutinous Rice Porridge With Durian To Cool Off category. And Abah, you wouldn't want to miss this part. You would be laughing your head off when you read this. You knew that only me your daughter managed to do this dumb thing since I was young, and you  knew that I'm not dumb. After I had three spoonfuls of my creamy and sweet porridge, I noticed the durian wasn't mushy and it was still remained as a whole. Durian should've blended with the porridge. The flesh was still attached to the seed. I picked it up and took a bite. Oh.......my goodness, I didn't remove the clear plastic that wrapped the durian. I was so excited to eat pulut durian, my usual observant mind and eyes were shut down completely. But you knew me Abah, I was the only one in the family who have been always walked into the doors, furniture and cooked frozen durian along with its plastic wrap.

Nevertheless Abah, I enjoyed it very much. I thought about you when I ate it because it was one of your favorite dessert. When ever Mak cooked black rice porridge with durian, she hid it away. Otherwise you wanted to have a dessert before you had your lunch.

Every time I step out the door I never forget to greet the earth, "Assalamualaikum earth, assalamualaikum sky, assalamualaikum clouds, assalamualaikum trees, assalamulaikum birds, assalamualaikum earth worms".  You taught me the first time to greet the nature when we were living in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan. I was five years old. And now the snow cover the earth, I add to my greeting, Assalamualaikum snow. I miss you Abah.

Can I Trust My Memory?

For a long time I thought the memory of my mother, my little brother T and I sat on the blanket on Sabak Beach on one sunny afternoon was mine. The sun was high in the sky, playing hide and seek behind the clouds and the tide was low. I could hear the wave crawled lazily along the narrow shore, and the air tasted salty,

We sat under two cashew nut trees that grew closed side by side, when I stood between two trees with both of my arms raised, my palms touched to both trunks. The branches and leaves etwined to each other, I thought the tree had two trunks. It was our favorite spot to have our little picnic. While my mother fed T with rice mashed with roasted banana, I would lie down on my belly watching the ants worked their ways from the ground up to the cashew trees. My mother packedd my lunch in an aluminium container: rice, half of deboned fried mackerel and steamed spinach.

The salty afternoon breeze, the heat and full stomach worked their magic to both of us. Very soon both of us fell asleep. My mother picked her needlework and worked quietly until my father returned from workshop. He walked down to the beach from our quarter to pick us up.

My father carried T in his arms, my mother gathered the blanket, her kembai, a little woven box made of mengkuang leaves  where she kept all her sewing tools and empty lunch container. I dragged my flip-flopped feet in white sand trying to convince my mother I was tired, therefore she should carry me too. My mother said, I was too big to be carried, besides I had to carry sleeping Tompok.

"Who is Tompok ?"

"Your stuffed cat that I made for you. Don't you remember?"

Wait a minute, how did I remember all the details from the type of fish I ate and the salty air, but I couldn't remember about Tompok? As a matter of fact I had no idea I ever had a stuffed cat named Tompok. My mother told me I abandoned Tompok after I hit our next door kid with it. The boy tried to snatch a plastic toy truck from my little brother T.

Did I get confused with the story I heard many times from my mother, that I thought it was my memory? I was almsot four years old then. Alice Kaplan in her memoir  French Lesson wrote in detail what her siblings taught her to say when she was three years old. So, may be it was my memory after all.

Remembering My Father on Cara

Travel from one district court two hours away from the city to another district court the next day is not something I look forward to do on my working days. Sometimes the amount of time a client stands in front of the judge is only 1/6 of the entire time we  sit on the hardbench outside the court room.

When I get a seasoned clients who don'tt need my presence with them at the court, I could hear my own relieved sigh.  But, it is not always the case.

So, I apologize for readers who have been stopping by.

anakdaganganakdaganganakdaganganakdaganganakdaganganakdaganganakdaganganakdagang

My father's favorite kueh manis was Cara (pronounce chara). Sometimes when my mother was out of idea for afternoon tea, she asked nobody in particular but loud enough for us to throw in our sweet tooth craving.

"Cara," said my father behind the newspaper.

"Abah,  we already had cara this morning". I reminded him in case he overloaded his mind with all the news he read from four daily newspapers he subscribed .

"I don't mind having it again for tea this afternoon."

My mother rolled her eyes.

Once, he had a high fever. He was in bed for three days. He didn't eat anything except stilled water. His body temperature was back to normal on the fourth day. He ate a half small bowl of chicken soup. He pushed the bowl aside. My mother asked him what would he like to have.

"Cara."

When we lived in army base, my father always came home for lunch.  After the lunch he had a cup of teh tarik (chai) and went to verandah to put on his combat boots. While he was putting on his boots, my mother placed a plastic container next to him.

My father stopped halfway tying the long black boots laces and looked at mother in surprised.

"What is this?"

"Open it."

My father's face glowed like a morning sun when he opened the container.  They exchanged the look. As a child I couldn't interpret it, but I had this warm feeling as the bubbles were ready to burst with happiness and content when I saw the expressions on their faces. I saw it many times before and after.

With one side of his boots unlaced, he ate cara one by one until they were all gone.  He licked his fingers and continued to tie his boot laces.

My father would be home a little late if he returned home for lunch. We had afternoon tea without him, but my mother already put cara away for my father after he had his shower.

As a grown woman with a spouse I share the warm-love-giddy kind of  feeling my mother felt when Buu looked surprised when I cook his favorite dishes.

Today, while I  mixed the flour, milk (instead of coconut milk), eggs and pandan (screwpine)extract in an aluminum bowl, I saw my father's glowing face, gazing lovingly at my mother as he chewed his cara.

My mother used a copper mould when she prepared cara.  The mould is older than me, older than my sister KN, because my father bought it right after they were married. Now my sister has it. When the last time I went home, my mother bought me an aluminium mould after she exhausted all her resources to get a copper mould. It seemed they no longer made copper mould. But I'm sure in some parts of Malaysia, the cooking utensils industry is still alive. Trengganu comes into mind.

And for my aluminium cara mould, I know I would be using it for many years, god willing.

The Art of Dunkin'

When I was a kid I basically dunk everything into my tea. All type of crackers : Biskut Marie, Roti Kapai, roti pat sagi .

All types of fritters: Cucog Udang, Cucog Bawang and Cucog Kodok.

I had no problem when I dunk fritters into my tea, except my tea tasted a little funny when foreign matters float on the surface, which I didn't mind at all.

But dunking biskut marie was a challenge. It required a skill that only a serious dunker could achieve. Two important things I kept in mind to succeed in this mission: total focus and commitment. When I had biskut marie in my hand, I didn't let anybody or anything to break my concentration. I held a tiny weeny part of biskut marie between my thumb and forefinger and dunk into my tea. One, two, as quick as lightning I transferred the soft-now-but-not-limpy biskut marie into my mouth in one piece. If I let even a half split second, the whole biskut marie went limpy and disappeared from my fingers. All I could see a few seconds later was a little lumpy of strange looking things floating in my tea. I hated that. I had to get up and looked for tea spoon to scoop up the floaters.

When I turned nine, I became a little snobbish. I thought dunkin fritters into my tea was eewwwww.......nasty. How could I did that? Why didn't my parents said anything about it? Well, they did, but as usual, I did  it anyway.

Now, I am all grown woman, I still enjoy dunking my roti pat sagi, croissant and most of all I lovvvvvvvvveeee dunkin biscoti. And after all these years of dunkin, I have achieved a sense of timing. I can dunk my biscoti in my coffee, watch the world goes by, bring out the biscoti off my coffee in one piece.

When the Time Comes

The past three days have been blessing. Gorgeous weather. The sun has shown its mercy since this weekend. The kind of summer I wish to go on with no ending. Of course everything has its time. Time to grow, time to learn , time to rest, time to love, time to let go, time to stop, time to die. Nothing lasts forever.

When I was a kid I was horrified to think about death. Not about my death, but my mother. When ever I learned about some body's death, I couldn't sleep at night. I tossed in my bed all night. I made numerous trips to a bathroom to wash my face. I thought if I felt asleep, I wouldn't be able to help my mother if she needed me. My worst fear was, if my mother died, my father would gotten himself a new wife. I would get a wicked stepmother who beat me and my siblings everyday. She would forced us to do all the house chores and starved us. She would be as bad as Noormadiah, Umi Kalthum or Siti Tanjung Perak in the old Malay movies.

I never talked about my childhood fear until many years later. I was in my twenties when I learned that I wasn't the only kid who had the fear. Most of my friends shared the similar experience. All of us feared about the death of our mothers. None of us worried about the death of our fathers.

Why my mother and not my father? I could say it from my experience. When I was growing up, most of the kids I knew personally or from distance were the kids who lost their mothers. The first year we lived on army base in Sungai Besi, I became to know this chatty girl who lived four blocks away from my house. We met at Quran reading class. She was two years older than I was, but she was slow at at McAdam reading level. So, Park Ci Adam, our Qumran instructor sat her next to me. She was like a 24 hours weather forecast TV station. Yak...yak....yak...yak....

When her mother died during a complication childbirth,  her father married for a second time a few months later. When they returned from their hometown with her new step mother, she turned into a different girl I used to know. She turned mute.  She still attended the Qumran class, but the only time we heard her voice was when she sat in front of Park Ci Adam to read her Sarah. She never spoke to any of us again. A couple of months later she went back to live with her grandparents in Negeri Sembilan.

There was another kid on the base whose mother died too.  The father married for a second time and took his young wife back to the base. The following year when my father was stationed in Simanggang Sarawak, we went to live with grandmother in Penang for a year.  Three or four kids in grandmother's village lost their mothers. All of them lived with their stepmothers.

During those years I never met, knew or heard about kids who lost their fathers and their mothers got them stepfathers. Makcik Piah was my mother's childhood friend. Her husband was a fisherman. He lost in the sea on one stormy night. They never found his body. Makcik Piah brought up all her four children single-handedly. When I met Makcik Piah for the first time all her children were grown up. Two of her daughters were in Teachers College in Tanjung Malim. Her third daughter went to the same high school with my sister KN and her youngest son was in the first year of high school. Makcik Piah never married again.

Makcik Piah was one of few women I knew in those years who continued to live their lives and brought up their children without men involved. And for old Malay movies I don't remember ever watched one with a main character died leaving his wife and children behind, and later the wife married again. Not even one.

  I found an amazing link. I like to share it with you.

Two Decades Later

More than two decades ago when I was a Minah Kilang as we were called in those days, I had two good friends, a beautiful Indian girl named Rani and Kak Laila, anak mami from Air Itam.  We worked on rotating shifts, morning, afternoon and night shift. Each of us had our favorite shift. I enjoyed morning shift because when the shift ended at 3 p.m, I had plenty of time to go running at Bukit Dumbar. Kak Laila hated night and morning shift, but if they ever asked her to work permanent afternoon shift, she would've had accepted it. We were equally efficient, fast and skilled operators except when we worked on graveyard shift.

It was like part of our brain was left on the pillow at home. And as for Rani, a night owl, she could sit at work station from 11 pm to 7 am minus a couple of trips to a bathroom and 45 minutes meal break without yawning, not even once.

If we didn't get enough sleep, usually by 3 a.m, both Kak Laila and I looked like we'd just woke up from Sleepless Night on Elm Street. Hair was sticking out at wrong directions, an endless trips to a bathroom to splash water on our faces, and that didn't help either. While we, in complete package of red eyes and everything, moved around in slomo like characters  28 Days Later . Every object in front of us appeared to be double or multiple, Rani sat in her chair as cool as cucumber. Even our gorgeous supervisor, six footer Mr. Arumugam didn't look that attractive with our half-functining brain.

But all of us agreed during dinner break at 6:30 pm on afternoon shift was the best time of all. It was the time of the day when we sat together on the dark brown bench at the far corner of the plant having our dinner. It was the time we shared Kak Laila's rice and fish curry with eggplant, Rani's rice and mutton curry and my rice and masak lemak rebung (bamboo shoot) and prawns. I lived with my sister KN then, she did all the cooking. She was and she still is a wicked greatest cook. Kak Laila and Rani were excited to see what was in my tupperware. They had curry almost every day, so whatever I had in my tupperware, they knew it was goning to be different.

Before the end of the year, Kak Laila got married and decided to leave for good. Rani and I attended her wedding, and we teased her mercilessly. When I went to work with another company, we kept in touch for about a year. I went to Rani's open house on Raja Street (off Beach Street) during Deepavali and she told me her family was arranging a marriage for her. Her face was glowing.

"Don't forget to invite me, Ana when you get married."

"Oh....no Rani, not until I see the world."

It was the last time I spoke with Rani. Kak Laila and Rani, I miss you my wonderful friends.

Pandanglah....Lihatlah.........

My sister KN was organizing our old photo albums the other day while we were chatting on the phone. She came across one of my photo albums during my first three years at a boarding school.  I asked to see one of my previous photo with my two best friends, Nani and Shariff.

"You have about 20 photos with the same two girls here. One is skinny with large glasses and the other one had a lot of freckles." I could hear her flipping the pages.

"The one we were on a stage singing" More flipping.

"Oh....here it is, is this the one you you were singing Senyap dan Sunyi (Extremely Quiet) ?"

"Yeah....that's the one. Does it still look okay?"

"Yes, it is."

It was a last minute decision. All we wanted to do was to watch and make fun of every girl who got on the stage. Three of us were excellent on the field. Nani was school long jumper, Shariff could beat anybody on the school ground in table tennis while licking her Cornetto Drum Stick ice cream and we played field hockey for school. But we never got on the stage. We sneered at everybody on the stage. Stage for kaki bangku. How cocky we were.

We had seen an invitation in Bulletin Board for all Form Three and Form Five students to participate in Malam Dalam Ingatan - A Night to Remember, two weeks before our final exam. We rolled our eyes and got on with our lives. But the eyes rolled back to us when Nani suggested we should take part in it.

"What? Are you out of your mind?" Shariff and I stopped dead in our track while Nani didn't slow her pace. When she sensed she was running by herself, she retraced her step back to us. Shariff and I had our hands on the hips and looked at her as she was crazy. It was not only an annoying idea, it was pure offensive. Us on the stage?

"Did you hear what you just said?" Nani had this silly smile on her face that made me wanted to put my hands on her shoulder and shook some senses into her.

"Do you have an idea what will those stagers say to us?" Shariff reminded her off all the offense remarks we had made.

"Since when we care what they say about us?" She got the point there.

We lost count the trips we made to Mr. A a Principal office every time we broke the school rules and regulations. We became immune to the warnings from Assistant Principal. The only thing that made a difference was we never did anything that involved other students, teachers or school properties, and we always kept our grades among the best. We thought those were the reasons they never actualized their words except once.Three of us were shuffled into the Principal's office one Monday afternoon. We were caned three times on the soles of our feet. That made six each. 18 canes for three girls who were not afraid to break the rules.

"This is going to be fun. We always say we should have fun in everything we do. And this is one of those." Nani seemed excited about the idea, it scared us. She looked like she was being hypnotized by some witches or something.

We walked to the far side of the field where the grass was thicker and greener and sat.

Nani was right. We looked at almost everything in a funny way. We laughed at the wrong time, we chuckled and giggled when others thought it was not funny.

"We'd probably not going to see each other again." Nani and I looked at Shariff. The idea didn't hit us until she said it. Or it did. We thought about it, but we were too terrified to even bring up the subject. We knew we were going to make it in our SRP (Lower Certificate Education), but we might be going on separate ways.

"Let's do it." I was hoping Shariff would agree with me. I wanted three of us to do something silly. Something outrageous in our 15 year old minds. Sure we had been doing a lot of silly things to ourselves. But this was an ultimate fun.

Nani looked at me and land turned to look at Shariff. We turned to look at Shariff. As usual Shariff took a freaking long time to say anything. Shariff got up, deliberately picked up the grass off her short one by one while Nani and I turned blue holding our breath.

"So what song are we going to sing?"

We squealed and jumped under a glorious purple evening sky.

Our plan was to have fun and not a perfection. We chose an old song, a song we knew would crack a smile, to stir fond memory from our teachers, especially to our most beloved teacher Cik Gu WZ. We chose the song with her in mind. We wanted to dedicate the song for her.

The next few days we breathed on our song. Nani was a natural born dancer while Shariff and I were retarded hands-feet-eyes coordination. It took us two full days to do a simple 1-2-3 cha cha steps.

A night before a performance we had a final rehearsal. Cik Gu Tahir an adviser for the event was pleased with students choices of songs and performance except one teacher, Cik Gu FS who decided to take a peek at the last minute. All the students were merenyam, tergedik-gedik -saucy- except the girls sat quietly at the back of the class, the audience, the girls who kept staring at their hands on their laps when she was in one of those mood of attacking us.

Our group was not fortunate enough to escape her scrutinized when she wiggled her wide  behind through school auditorium.

Right in the middle when we hit:

Perempuan yang tak pandai menjaga badan

Suaminya tentu lekas menjadi bosan

Mengerbang rambut macam hantu dalam hutan

Suami memandang hampir pengsan.......

She lifted her hand and waved at Cik Gu Tahir. Her fair complexion turned into a roasted eggplant.

"This is unacceptable. The song is inappropriate for the young girls."

She had a habit to puff up her cheeks when she was angry. She looked exactly like a gold fish blowing  bubbles in a fish tank.

We didn't have a chance to complete a third round of our 1-2-3 cha cha steps. All eyes traveled from us on the stage to an angry gold fish stood facing Cik Gu Tahir. The auditorium was completely quiet we could hear our own breathing.

We knew it we would never had a chance. Cik Gu Tahir was a wonderful teacher, but he never liked a confrontation especially with someone like Cik Gu Gold Fish's character.

We dragged our shattered desire to the back of the stage defeated. Nani sat on the floor near the stage stairs. Shariff and I stood and looked at our shoes while Cik Gu Tahir haltingly explained to us why we couldn't sing our chosen song. Cik Gu FS stood next to Cik Gu Tahir. She looked at us with her eyes that reminded me of a wolf's eyes, a character in a children story book. The wolf killed and ate a little girl's grandmother.

"But you like the song. You said it yourself." Nani's tears raining down her face faster than her hand could wipe them.

"I know, but we have to consider.........."

I didn't hear the rest of Cik Gu Tahir's words. I squeezed Shariff left hand who was sitting next to me.

"Cik Gu, can we still perform if we tone down the lyric?" I held my breath. I didn't look in Cik Gu FS's direction.

Shariff looked at me with question mark expression. Nani wiped her smeared face opened her mouth and closed again when I gave them I-tell-you-later looked.

We weren't going to let Cik Gu FS crushed our plan. The song was for our teacher and we planned to make it happen.

"Yes, I think it would be fine." This time Cik Gu Tahir didn't give Cik Gu FS to jump in.

We said good night to both of the teachers and left the auditorium. I told Nani and Shariff about my plan. Both of them thought it was a brilliant idea.

"I couldn't wait to see Cik Gu FS's face tomorrow night." Nani clapped her hands and circled around Shariff and I with her cha cha steps. Shariff and I stopped and joined Nani. We laughed all the way back to the hostel.

The next night, while waiting for our turn behind the heavy dark curtain I was so nervous I made a trip to a bathroom until I felt hollow in my bladder. Looking at the audience when they were facing me was a new experience. It was a nerve wrecking. It like my stomach was being punched over and over. It was a different feeling when I ran on the track. I didn't know how those debaters could do it. That night I looked at those girls that I smirked at them in a different light. I never felt so ashamed of myself.

"Cik Gu WZ sits in the front row, number seven from right," Shariff said to herself. We already knew it. Nani pointed her out. When a DJ called out our group, Tiga Langkah Tak Sama - Three Uneven Steps, and our song was Senyap Sunyi - Extremely Quiet, we stepped out with our hearts hammered our chests. "Take a deep breath, take a deep breath." Shariff reminded us as we walked to a center of the stage. We heard the thunderous applause from From Three A class and a short, short and long wolf whistles I was positive came from a junior girl in my dorm. She was the only girl in the school who could whistled like a boy.

When the applause quiet down, I told the audience our song was dedicated to our class teacher Cik Gu WZ who made us wanted to be in the class and completed her assignments in time. I was so nervous I was talking to an empty space above the audience's heads. But I was sure Cik Gu WZ understood us. I walked toward the DJ and gave a mike into her hand. She looked confused and surprised. "We don't need it tonight."

I moved back between Shariff and Nani who were ready to take my cue.

"Ready...........one , two , three."

Shariff brought up her hands with ten fingers formed like claws as she was holding a saxophone. She puffed her cheeks as she was blowing.

Nani was a left handed bass guitarist and I pretended holding a mike. Only three of us could hear I was singing the same song we sang last night. The audience saw me opened and closed my mouth with an invisible mike in my hand, Nani with her invisible bass guitar and Shariff was blowing an invisible saxaphone.

Pandanglah, lihatlah,

Rupaku yang cantik dan

rambutku yang ikal,

marilah tuan-tuan dan nyonya

Sama-samalah pandang

perempuan yang cantik bikin hati goyang

The teachers looked at each other trying to figure it out, but by these times, most of the students had figured it out. They began to enjoy our performing and I heard a few clapped coming from front row. With my heart jumped all over my chest, my eyes fell on Cik Gu Tahir. I knew it by the look on his face and his nodded head, he got it too.

Pandanglah, lihatlah

pinggang ku yang ramping (I made an hour-glass gesture)

dan dadaku yang bidang

Inilah selalu menjadikan

Orang hilanglah akal

rumahtangga tak kekal

Gilakan bayangkan

When I hit this lyric, Shariff and Nani 'put away' their instrument and we were already into the cha cha mood. We were enjoying ourselves and an incredible feeling being on the stage, we didn't care if we were thrown out of school the next morning.

Perempuan kalau tak pandai jaga badan

suaminya tentu lekas menjadi bosan

mengerbang rambut macam hantu dalam hutan

suami memandang hampir pengsan

Perempuan kalau sayangkan suaminya

Pandang sini, hai tirulah seperti saya

jaga bentuk,

jaga kulit dan jaga rupa

Senyum sayang kau berikan dia

Pandanglah...lihatlah....tiru macam saya........

We were delirious with thunderous respond from the audience, none of us heard anything the DJ said. There was no need to go into a great detail of what happened next. We became school celebrity for a while before everybody packed and went home for a long holiday. We went to Cik Gu WZ to say good bye. She told us she knew about the song and she was touched by our persistence, but looking back at our records, she wasn't surprised. As for Cik Gu FS, we didn't really look at her way since that night.

For Nani and Shariff, where ever you guys are, you are always on my mind.

KN, The Seri Kaya Maker

My first memory of sweet creamy seri kaya was when I was six years old. It was a year my father's tour of duty to Simanggang, Sarawak. Once again, my parents dragged all of us across the country to grandmother's house in Penang. It was the end of the year, a long school holiday. Beginning of the next year I would start a standard one (gred one). I was fortunate because the school was just opposite grandmother's house across the street.

Two days later my father left grandmother's house. He had to catch an early train from Butterworth, so I was still in bed when he said goodbye to my mother. I don't remember what actually had happenned, but my mother told me I refused to eat breakfast and sat on the swing all morning until noon under grandmother big house waiting for my father to return home.

Grandmother said I was spoiled and forbade my sister KN to bring down my favorite roti seri kaya (white bread sandwiched with sweet concoction made of eggs, coconut milk and brown sugar and not to forget daun pandan). Mak bought two loaves of bread every other morning from mamak roti.

Every morning, mamak roti (an Indian man whom we called mamak) rode his big bicycle would stopped in front of grandmother's house. The whole year I was at grandmother's house I never saw mamak wore anything else other than white clean sarong and white shirt. He always smelled minyak attar (perfumed body oil).

He had this specially built a 2'x2'x3' glass box with wood panel attaced at the back of his bicycle. He kept all his freshbaked bread loaves in this box along with seri kaya in cans. The front side of the box has a little door. He pulled out a little piece of cutting board from under the glass box. With his sharp knife he sliced the bread. For us the kids, watching mamak sliced the bread was one of highlights of the day before the sun set, something we did not want to miss.

My sister came downstairs anyway and asked me to go to a grocery store with her. When we were about a stone throw away from grandmother's house, KN handed me a small newspaper wrapped packet.

"What is it KN?"

"Open it."

I unwrapped the newspaper and there was my sandwich lathered with egg seri kaya. The caramelized color of seri kaya glistened under an afternoon sun. The afternoon breeze brought out a heavenly scent of pandan leaves.With my index finger I swiped the creamy seri kaya along the edge of sandwich and licked it.

I took small bite and chewed the sandwich dreamily. As my sandwich was getting smaller, the tastier the seri kaya had become. By the time we hit Bakar's front store KN's sandwich was making its way into my system. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and licked my sticky fingers one by one.

"The serikaya was good, KN."

"Yes, I know. I made it."

"Your serikaya is hundred times better than mamak roti's seri kaya."

KN is a genius cook. She learned early to master most of Malay dishes. Nobody could keep their secret recipes from KN. When she tastes a new dish for the first time, she could generalize what's in it. The second time she eats it, she could break down every single spices and ingredients in the dish. And she rarely makes a mistakes.